


The Space Between What Could Be and What Is

by zeldadestry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-01
Updated: 2007-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:25:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one deserves her. Absolutely no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between What Could Be and What Is

**Author's Note:**

> written for the snape_after_dh fest, my prompt was "Lily's Eyes"

She is standing in front of him in a faded blue Muggle dress and the sun is shining directly behind her, blinding him twice.

The word beautiful has no meaning to him, except in connection with her, as a description of her. And every time her beauty confronts him, his heart writhes in its vise.

If he could wish for anything it would be for her to be his and only his. She is so beautiful, too beautiful to belong to any one person. Someone so beautiful belongs to everyone who deserves her, as their treasure and their prize. Their reward.

But no one deserves her. Absolutely no one. That is the paradox.

 

She was down by the lake, her books discarded beside her, her shoes and socks off and her eyes closed.

She'd dragged him down from the library. "You can't study all the time, Sev. You know it all, anyway." She'd dragged him away from his comfortable dark corners to lie out in the sun with her.

"I remember this blanket," he muttered, inspecting the cloth that was spread underneath them. It was patchwork, and he ran his fingers over the seams holding together the scattered pieces.

"Do you? I brought it from home."

"I know. I was in your room, once."

"That time I was so sick. I remember." He had thought she might. But they played this game, sometimes, told stories to each other, stories of their mutual past. "And you read to me, because I was so bored, I'd been locked up for days. And I wanted you to use different voices for the characters, but you wouldn't, no matter how I begged! You're a very stubborn bastard when you want to be."

He flipped over on his belly, propped himself up on his elbows and peered down into her smiling face. "I didn't want you to laugh at me."

"Well, that was the point! I wanted to laugh." And laugh she did, and he imagined every creature in the Forbidden Forest could hear her, wished to be where he was, beside her, out in the sun, the sun which sparkled in her hair, heated her and made her blush, brought out the freckles dappled across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, little golden imperfect circles he wanted to brush with his fingertips.

"I don't like Muggle stories. They're either deadly dull because there's no mention of magic at all, or they do include magic and then proceed to muck up all the details. They're all trash."

"You and your bold proclamations. How do you know? Have you read them all? Every single one? Hmmm? Well, I suppose you expect me to be grateful that you deigned to read such nonsense just for my sake. Is that it?"

"I had to sneak in because your mother wouldn't allow me in the house."

"Oh, you insist on playing the martyr, don't you? Don't let them bother you, it wasn't personal. They never let us have boys over. It's stupid. Worried we're going to be corrupted."

"I wouldn't."

"No?" She turned over on her side, and as she moved her sundress rose up and revealed more of her legs. His eyes drifted down, over the pale curves of her thighs, and he bit down hard on his lower lip - the frustration of knowing by sight but not by touch, by taste. When she cleared her throat, he looked away, caught and ashamed over it, but when he gathered enough bravery to sneak a glance at her again, he saw that she was still smiling. "I always thought they should be more worried about all the corruption I was doing," she said, with satisfaction.

He could not trust himself, could not trust that he understood what she did or did not offer. He had learned quickly from his mother, far quicker from his father, that asking for what they did not want to give him meant risking any affection at all. "You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

"Maybe." She tickled her fingers against his ribs. "Is it working? Did I prick your cold cold heart and make it bleed?" she cooed, in a voice he'd heard her use with dogs and babies and hippogriffs alike, with any living being she deemed adorable.

"Don't tease," he begged. "I can't stand it - not from you."

It was not unusual for her to touch him, rest a hand on his shoulder, let her legs stretch out over his lap, lean against him when she was sleepy. But she was always still when she did so. Now she let her hands trace, linger, running up and down the sides of his waist and making him shiver. "Sev," she murmured. "Listen to me. This is important. I would never hurt you, not intentionally. You know that, right?" He knew what it was to be unwanted. All his life, it was all he'd ever known. How could he recognize what was in her eyes, trust that it wouldn't be stripped from him in the moment he grasped for it? He had experienced nothing that would allow him to believe, encourage him to accept. She reached her hands up to his robes, drew him further down. "And now it's your turn. Promise me that you want me to be happy, that you'll never hurt me."

"Lily…"

His face was very close to hers. "Sev," she sighed, and he watched her lips, pink and moist, and she said his name again, he watched her tongue move to shape the sounds, and he could bring himself no closer. He was suspended there, in that one moment, at that precise distance from her, and he felt that if he crossed those few remaining centimeters he might lose his life, lose all that was most precious to him.

One of her hands pressed against his cheek and he looked up into her eyes again and panic stirred within him, the vise was clamping down, clutching tighter than it ever had before. Her eyes were wet, he felt his own eyes begin to water in turn and, terrified to cry in front of her, he drew quickly apart, scrambled to his feet. He had to get away.

 

She is in her sundress, she is in her sundress and the sun is shining behind her and he is reaching his hand out towards her, he is reaching his hand out towards her and she is reaching her hands out in return, she is reaching her hands out in return.

He wakes in his bed, he wakes alone, wipes the tears away with the back of his hand, stares into space and thinks of nothing, nothing. There is nothing left.


End file.
